For the one who delights in the Self, action has run out of anything left to win.

Advaita Vedānta

These commentators read the verse as describing the one already established in knowledge of the Self, for whom liberation is not a future result but the ever-present reality merely uncovered by knowledge. The 'purpose' that action cannot serve is, above all, liberation itself, which is 'the unmade' and so unreachable by any 'made' deed; only truth-knowledge dispels the ignorance that made it seem absent. Madhusūdana adds a long map of the seven stages of knowledge (from the first wish for the good up to the highest turya state of one whose bodily life is carried on by others while he abides in unbroken bliss), arguing that even a beginner risen to the early stages is no longer qualified for action, much less the fully liberated-in-life. On the question of how to read 'akṛta' (the undone), Nīlakaṇṭha defends taking 'done' and 'undone' as a contrary pair standing for merit and demerit (puṇya and pāpa), and rejects reading 'undone' as the specific fault of omitting a daily rite, since no positive demerit can spring from mere non-doing; allowing that would lead to absurd consequences where any unenjoined act done at the time of a rite would itself become a transgression. One of these voices (Dhanapati) explicitly waves off importing Vasiṣṭha's stages of knowledge here as not needed for this verse, marking an internal disagreement within the school over how much apparatus the verse calls for.

Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrī Ānandagiri

Viśiṣṭādvaita

For these commentators the whole verse is read in terms of 'the beholding of the Self' (ātma-darśana). The 'purpose' that no action serves, and the 'harm' that no omission causes, are both defined against this beholding: there is no harm in leaving a means undone because his beholding of the Self does not depend on any means. The artha is the beholding, present and settled; the anartha (harm) is its absence, which for him is permanently removed. Because he is, of himself, already turned away from all insentient things other than the Self, he has no recourse to any of the transformations of matter (the elements such as space and their effects) for which a discipline would have to be undertaken to turn him away from them; he is the liberated man indeed. Vedānta Deśika's careful glossing reinforces that no prerequisite or precondition is needed for such a one. Notably, Rāmānuja then draws a conclusion the other schools do not draw from this verse: precisely because only the one whose beholding needs no means sets out on no means, and because for everyone short of that the discipline of action (karma-yoga) is easier, safer from heedlessness, and itself includes dwelling on the truth of the Self, the discipline of action remains the better path for actually accomplishing the beholding of the Self.

Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika

Bhedabheda

Bhāskara reads the verse along the same broad lines: by deeds such as sacrifice he has no purpose, and by the undone no end of avoiding some evil consequence; among all beings from Brahmā down he has no object of dependence, no expectation, for 'he indeed becomes That' (the scripture he cites). What sets his comment apart is a sharp practical addendum: he insists that one who is still governed by the properties of the body and senses, who sleeps and acts under their sway, cannot claim to be 'one whose delight is in the Self,' and so cannot claim this exemption. He then warns that each person must reflect for himself whether action is to be given up or performed, and that the 'misguided instruction' of present-day teachers who counsel abandonment of action out of confusion and sloth is not to be heeded or treated as authoritative.

Śrī Bhāskara

Dvaita

These commentators take the verse with a particular target in view: it is not a generic statement about every knower, but is calibrated to the teaching situation with Arjuna. Madhva stresses that mere knowledge exempting one from lapse 'holds equally of Arjuna,' so this verse cannot be doing the work of teaching action to Arjuna unless read carefully; and he insists that for a knower a lapse still functions as an indicator, a small one pointing to a slight unwelcome thing beginning to bear fruit, a great lapse (like the slaying of Vṛtra) to a great one. Jayatīrtha works out, at length, that the verse speaks of the one abiding in the trance beyond cognition (the deep absorption that is itself an action), and that the denials of purpose, of fault from omission (even of twilight rites, even of the worship of teachers and deities), and of resort to any being are all aimed at forbidding the excess of rising from that trance to perform such acts when their occasion comes near. He treats 'artha-vyapāśraya' grammatically as a possessive compound: the 'resort' or attaining of purpose happens through some activity such as seeing, the teachers and deities being the objects of sight, which is why the locative ('in all beings') fits. He also draws the striking corollary, citing later teachers of his line, that even for the knower the doing of forbidden action brings 'the unwished' and an immediate distress of mind, and that a corresponding diminution of bliss is to be seen even in liberation, with no increase of bliss from performing the enjoined.

Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha

Śuddhādvaita

These commentators read the one of the verse as a devotee whose sole refuge is the Lord (Bhagavān). For him no fruit of pleasure or pain comes by what is done or by what is forbidden, and no being among all beings, gods or others, is a refuge he must take for any purpose, neither for liberation nor even for bhakti. The reason given is positive rather than merely negative: having taken Bhagavān as his one and only resort, he is freed from all secondary dependencies, and he acts, when he acts at all, only on the Lord's call. The accent thus falls not just on the absence of need but on the single living dependence on God that has replaced every lesser one.

Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama

Bhakti

These commentators stress freedom from ego and from the gods' obstruction. Śrīdhara explains that, being free of ego-sense (nir-ahaṅkāra), the knower stands beyond injunction and prohibition; he then takes up at length the worry that the gods may obstruct one nearing liberation, and shows from śruti that the gods have no power to obstruct the knower of the Self, since the Self has become their very Self and brahma-knowledge is precisely what is displeasing to them only in the period before it dawns. Baladeva reads 'purpose' and 'harm' against the beholding of the Self, which is natural to such a one, and likewise argues that the obstacles the gods made before knowledge simply do not arise once delight in the Self has risen, by its very power. Jñāneśvar offers a homely image of the whole teaching: all actions come automatically to an end once the bliss of the Self is secured, just as all means fall away once their object is reached; the means, in the form of observing one's own dharma, are to be used only so long as Self-realization has not yet been secured.

Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar

Modern

These commentators present the verse in direct, practical terms. Sivananda states simply that the sage rejoicing in the Self gains nothing by any action, suffers no evil (pratyavāya doṣa) from inaction, loses nothing by it, and need not depend on anyone or court anyone's favor to gain any object. Ramsukhdas adds a developmental psychology of the verse: every person has some tendency to act, and as long as that tendency is aimed at getting some worldly thing, the 'doing for oneself' remains, and it is by this very wish-to-get-for-oneself that a person is bound; one performs prescribed duty (kartavya-karma) precisely to wear that wish away, and once desireless feeling (niṣkāma-bhāva) matures, even the wish to do anything for oneself drops off. His key formulation is that attachment (āsakti), not activity (kriyā) itself, is the real cause of bondage, so where attachment has fallen away, both doing and not-doing become equally free. Tilak reads it tersely in the same direction: here in the world such a one has nothing to gain by doing or not doing any particular thing, and no purpose of his own that is bound up with created beings.

Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas